The Art of the Personal Project: Marc Ohrem-Leclef

As a former Art Producer, I have always been drawn to personal projects because they are the sole vision of the photographer and not an extension of an art director, photo editor, or graphic designer. This new column, “The Art of the Personal Project” will feature the personal projects of photographers using the Yodelist marketing database. You can read their blog at http://yodelist.wordpress.com. Projects are discovered online and submissions are not accepted.

Today’s s a very exciting one as since Marc Ohrem-Leclef was featured on December 4, 2014, many exciting things have happened for his beautiful personal project Olympic Favela.

Today’s Art of Personal Project is: Marc Ohrem-Leclef part 2

Olympic Favela- The Book: After I featured you, you were so kind to send me a copy and it is beautifully done. How have sales been and are you selling them at the Installations and Film Festival? How can someone reading this blog post purchase one?
Thank you Suzanne, I appreciate the kind words and the opportunity to share what has happened since the last feature! The book has been received very well, garnered good reviews and press coverage, and sold well. This summer sales and related press have picked up yet again with the Olympic Games approaching and exhibitions of the work in Rio, Berlin and New York.
Olympic Favela is available in the US and Europe at bookstores and online retailers such as my distributor Artbook ( http://www.artbook.com/9788862083386.html )

Signed copies can be purchased directly from my studio – I love to receive emails out of the blue from people who have seen the work and inquire about having me send them an autographed copy of the book. ( marcleclef AT gmail.com )
Some of the galleries where I have exhibited work from the Olympic Favela project also do sell the book.

Olympic Favela -The Film (Movie sounds like a feature length film to me, and mine is a short, 19 min): which has been featured at The Seattle International Film Festival (2016) and Nantucket Film Festival 2016. Tell us more about these festivals and are there others on the horizon?
After working with my collaborators in Rio for nearly three years and seeing how some of the places that I kept visiting began to vanish as the communities were being removed, I had the desire to translate my own experience of ‘time passing and events unfolding’ to my audience by making a film.

Making a film has been a huge learning experience that was as tough as it was rewarding. Due to the rich material I made between 2014 and 2016, we were able to make two different edits: a more abstract edit for projection in a gallery space, the other a bit more narrative for presentation to cinema-audiences – this is the version that screened at the film festivals.

It was a thrilling experience to be invited to two major film festivals to show Olympic Favela – and then to see it on the big screen! My production in Brazil was very low-key and to see the footage I shot hold up so well on a full size cinema screen made me happy, and proud.

Both festivals, quite different in scale and audiences, were wonderful opportunities to meet fellow filmmakers, screenwriters and to absorb much of the information in the panels offered by the festivals, and a great new way for me to share the story of Olympic Favela.

More importantly, the audience reactions to my film, which for a documentary is rather abstract in its story-telling, were wonderful and evolved very much around my finding my collaborators and the experience of being allowed to follow their lives for such long period.

I am waiting to hear on a few more festival submissions, especially some in Brazil and Europe where I’d like to have the film seen by audiences, before releasing it online.

Olympic Favela-The Installation: This first installation was at Studio X Gallery in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and then you just got back from Berlin, Germany. Please tell us about these installation and others in the future?
The exhibition in Rio’s Studio X was a wonderful opportunity to show the work at ‘home’.

Studio X is a beautiful space housed in a historic building in Rio’s downtown area. The space allowed for the most comprehensive installation of photographs and the projection of the film yet, including a photograph that is now in the collection of the Museo de Arte do Rio (MAR).

(The installation at a gallery space that receives funding form the city of Rio de Janeiro was also a daring move by the gallery director Pedro Rivera, given the work that is very critical of the city’s policies.)

We worked hard on getting my collaborators from their new homes, often located far away on the city’s outskirts, to the gallery for the opening event, which included an in-depth discussion with local journalist Julia Michaels and Curator Julia Baker of the Museo de Arte do Rio (MAR). I invited some of my collaborators to join the discussion – hearing them share their personal stories was the most powerful moment of the evening for me.

Following the opening night, I managed to loan a projector and showed the film to the residents at one of the hardest impacted favelas, in the local church.

Prior to the show in Rio, I was invited to share the work at Boston University’s PRC Gallery; currently the work (photography and video) is exhibited at nGbK/Kunstraum Kreuzberg in Berlin, until end of August.

A wonderful review of the group show and Olympic Favela works in it was just published on Artslant: http://www.artslant.com/ber/articles/show/46306

On August 17th an exhibition curated by Mickalene Thomas will open at Baxter Street Gallery in NYC (group show, featuring Olympic Favela works (photography and video) http://www.baxterst.org/exhibitions-3/2016-annual-juried-competition-and-exhibition/ .

Since you were featured, I noticed great press and reviews of your book and film. Can you tell us more about that?
The project has gotten a lot of attention from photo editors and writers, both online and in print. Publications and features range from fine arts media (Artnews, Select Magazine, American Photo, Slate) and trade media (PDN) to news outlets (BBC, Huffington Post, Der Spiegel).

Highlights were being named as one of ‘2014 best books’ by American Photo Magazine, and the feature on Huffington Post!
in 2015 Hafen-Universitaet Hamburg (Germany) published Self Induced Shocks: Mega-Projects and Urban Development, a book on the impact of mega events on urban culture, featuring a portfolio of Olympic Favela photographs along scientific texts. Publications like this are especially meaningful as they translate the human perspective on the issues surrounding mega events to students who may decide upon these issues in future generations.

Reviews:

HUFFINGTON POST US  – Olympic Favela, June 2016

SELECT MAGAZINE  – Olympic Favela, April 2016

AMERICAN PHOTO  – Olympic Favela, December 2014

GUP MAGAZINE  – Olympic Favela, July 2014

ARTnews  – Olympic Favela, July 2014

DER SPIEGEL  – Olympic Favela, June 2014

PDN PHOTO DISTRICT NEWS  – Olympic Favela, June 2014

NEWSTALK  – Olympic Favela, June 2014

L’OEIL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE   – Olympic Favela, May 2014

SLATE  – Olympic Favela, April 2014

GERMAN CONSULATE NYC  – Cowboys and Indians , March 2012

Press:

HUFFINGTON POST Brazil  – Olympic Favela, June 2016

CANAL iBASE  – Olympic Favela, January 2015

a PHOTO EDITOR   – Olympic Favela, December 2014

FOTOGRAFIA  – Olympic Favela, July 2014

FRESH ART INTERNATIONAL  – Olympic Favela, July 2014

HUNGER TV  – Olympic Favela, June 2014

BBC  – Olympic Favela, May 2014

CBC  – Olympic Favela, April 2014

DAILY MAIL  – Olympic Favela, April 2014

IRIE DAILY  – Olympic Favela, April 2014

OUT  – Olympic Favela, April 2014

ADVOCATE  – Cowboys and Indians , April 2013

KOELNER STADT ANZEIGER  – Cowboys and Indians , August 2007

ARTISTS STATEMENT –
Olympic Favela is an ongoing photography and video project that visualizes the effects of forced removal of residents in 14 of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, implemented by the city government in preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games.
In 2012, in response to news reports of widespread evictions of residents from their homes and businesses through Rio’s housing authority Secretaria Municipal de Habitação (SMH), I began photographing the people affected by these evictions, as well as the residents organizing resistance to SMH’s policies.

Olympic Favela consists of two types of portraiture:
The first type is environmental portraiture of the residents, photographed in front of their homes, which have been designated for removal by SMH with spray-painted code numbers. The second type is directed imagery of residents posing with flaming emergency torches, photographed in their communities. In these images the residents are no longer a subject that I look upon; their role in the image becomes active as they embrace the opportunity to represent their community, their struggle, and their resistance.

Referencing iconic imagery ranging from Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and Bartholdi’s Liberty Enlightening the World to now-iconic news imagery of the Arab Spring, the residents’ gesture and use of the torch in these photographs invoke ideas of liberation, independence, resistance, protest and crisis while also making use of the core symbol of the Olympic Games—the torch.

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The poster:

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The Installations:

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Marc Ohrem-Leclef was born in Dusseldorf, Germany.
After studying Communication Design at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany he relocated to New York City in 1998.
Ohrem-Leclef’s visual arts practice centers on immersive portraits of communities—whether they are formed by bloodlines, social circumstance, or cultural movements.
Ohrem-Leclef’s work has been exhibited in Germany, Brazil and the U.S..
It has been reviewed and featured in publications such as Artnews, BBC, Slate, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Internazionale, Huffington Post.
In 2013 Marc was invited as a Guest Lecturer in the Advanced Photography Seminar at Columbia University, New York. You can follow Marc on Instagram @marcleclef


APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information believing that marketing should be driven by a brand and not specialty. Follow her on twitter at SuzanneSease.

Not Marketing Has Devastating Effects On Business

…not marketing has devastating effects on business. There are way too many talented photographers in the marketplace for a photographer not to market. Think about it. If a photographer chooses not to market, that means their imagery and their name is not as top of mind as the next person’s. That means, when a project comes up, most likely, the person who IS top of mind will rise to the top of the consideration list. That also means that the other photographer will get the opportunity to engage with the agency and client, they will get the opportunity to estimate and ultimately they will get the opportunity to bid on the job and develop the relationship.

More: Want to Know What I Told Photographers While I Reviewed Portfolios at the Palm Springs Photo Festival? | Notes From A Rep’s Journal

The Highsmith vs Getty Saga Begins

The case alleges as many “bad acts” as we would typically see “spread out” among three or more unrelated lawsuits.

[…] The filing of this complaint is likely just the beginning of this saga. We will stay on it for you.

Regardless of how this case turns out, and we believe this will be news for a long time to come, for the love of your family and all you hold dear, register your images and protect yourself. Register even if you’re not licensing your images for fees or at all. We’ll keep saying this until we’re blue in the face.

More: TheCopyrightZone.com

The Daily Edit – Fortune: Ackerman + Gruber

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Fortune

 

Paul Martinez: Creative Director
Mia Diehl: Director of Photography
Michele Taylor: Photo Editor
Christine Bower-Wright: Art Director/Designer
Photographers: Ackerman + Gruber

Heidi: Since you live in the SPAM heartland, how often do you enjoy it?
AG: Living in Minnesota, you would have thought we have had SPAM before. However, it wasn’t until last year when we were on a shoot in Hawaii that we finally did.

How much time did you get for the shoot?
We spent a day in Austin, MN at both the Hormel campus and at the SPAM Museum.

Since you had direct access to the factory, did you have to wear protective clothing.
Unfortunately that factory shot wasn’t actually from the SPAM factory it was from a Skippy Peanut Butter factory in Arkansas and it actually wasn’t our photo. The SPAM plant wasn’t running when we were there as it was the time of the year where they shutdown the plant and do a deep cleaning of everything. Photographing in the SPAM plant would have been the only thing that would’ve made this shoot even more amazing. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made unless it’s SPAM and then we are all game.

What were the magazines directives?
Michele Taylor, the photo editor at Fortune, basically said keep it colorful and quirky. This is always music to our ears. She wanted a combination of reportage, still-lifes and portraits of the CEO and president. It was the perfect combination of direction and freedom to explore. When you’re in the land of SPAM it isn’t difficult to find images that jump out to you.

The shoot actually came together very quickly as the CEO and President were traveling for the next month so we got the first email from Michele on Wednesday afternoon and were shooting the assignment that Friday.

Often in cases like this we find the PR person is the biggest hurdle we have to overcome. So we find that keeping an idea or two in our back pocket is best and then after we feel out our subjects we can tell them the idea directly and get them on board, which in turn gets the PR person to run with it.

It’s such an iconic brand with a cult following what was your initial approach?
We see SPAM as this kind of quirky larger than life brand so we wanted the photos to play off that idea and decided the images should be “poppy” to reflect that so we decided to use a direct strobe for the shoot. Not to mention we love the approach for shoots whenever it’s a good fit so that also made it a no-brainer.

SPAM for Fortune

SPAM for Fortune

SPAM for Fortune

Are you both shooting all the time?
It depends on the shoot. For a shoot like this we are both switching fluidly between roles as a photographer/lighting tech/subject wrangler, etc.. In the situation for the CEO portraits, Tim is setting up and dialing in the lights, while Jenn is working with the PR team to calm any fears they might have and assuring them everything will go smoothly. Once the CEO arrives Jenn might start off shooting, while Tim is fine-tuning the lights, monitoring the tethered iPad for any major issues and thinking of about the next scenario. Often times we’ll hand off the camera in the middle of a portrait session to get a different perspective and to keep things fresh for our subjects. For more of the reportage and still-life photos, one person is acting as the assistant and holding the light, while the other person is shooting. The person who is holding the light is also always scanning the scene looking for any other visual potential in the situation. Tim loves shooting quirky Americana things like this so he shot the majority of the day.

Someone recently described watching the two of us work as one of the most fluid dances of creativity they have ever seen. It sounds cool so we won’t argue with them! We’ve been shooting together for so long now that we find we don’t even communicate verbally anymore and we already know what the other person is thinking and can be on the same page effortlessly.

What are each other’s strengths or how do you complement each other.
We find it’s an amazing luxury to be working as an husband and wife team and how much easier it is to break the ice and establish a rapport with our subjects. Often times we won’t know who the “main photographer” will be on a shoot until we meet our subjects and read how they respond to us. So sometimes that might be Tim and other times it will be Jenn, but more often than not we will both usually end up shooting. We find that one person usually has the art direction as their main focus and the other is free to explore beyond those restraints.

We joke with people that our marriage is a breeze and that the only disagreements we have are creative differences when we are out shooting. It’s great though because we channel that energy and use it to push ourselves our creatively. The real fun starts when we get back to the office and and see who’s images spoke to us the most.

Jenn is great at producing, scheduling and making sure people feel comfortable in front of the camera. Tim is usually the one setting up the gear, making sure the lights are dialed in and tackling any tech or logistical issues.

Are you always shooting motion and stills?
If the job calls for it we will. Otherwise we’re happy focusing on only stills. If a shoot happens to be a stills and motion project one person will focus on the stills (usually Jenn), while the other person focuses on the motion side of things (usually Tim). In the past we tried juggling the two between us both but found both mediums suffered so now we separate the roles so the outcome of both isn’t diluted.

What documentary film won an Emmy?
Our prison project Trapped won the Emmy.  The project looked how a prison system deals with treating those who suffer from mental illness. It was by far the most intense project we ever worked on.

The Daily Promo – Kenneth Ruggiano

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Kenneth M. Ruggiano


Who printed it?
I had the prints done by Bay Photo. It’s printed on Moab Entrada. After I receive the prints I shoot them “copy stand style” onto slide film, I used Fuji Velvia. I tried a couple different slide films and liked the Velvia the best. After I’m done with the slide film I send it off to Fromex in Long Beach, California to have it processed. No one in my area process slide film any more, sad face. Once it’s back to me after a week or so I cut each positive out and place it into a slide viewer. It’s a total pain in the ass…I mean labor of love. Than I cut a piece of leather, stamp my branding on it and attach. One final piece of branding stamped on the inside of the box filled with some crinkle paper and out it goes.

Who designed it?
I designed it. The semester I was graduating  from art school at the University of Oklahoma, one of lower classes showed some of their work with viewers like this. They hung from string in the hall and you had to walk up and interact with the viewer to see the work. I was jealous I didn’t get to do it.

Who edited the images?
I edited the images. I sent @aphotoeditor one version. There are three others. Who gets what depends on who they are, but they are all fitness related.

How many did you make?
In all I’ve probably made just over a 100. The one I sent to @aphotoeditor was in the second wave.  The first set I did as a test, I got some really positive feedback so I went ahead and did another batch right away.

How many times a year do you send out promos?
I’ve been doing a targeted promo once a year. Normally in the beginning of the year but the getting ready/birth of my little girl slowed me down a bit this year.

Where did you find that viewer?
The first set of viewers I bought about five years ago when I first had the idea to do these as a promo. I think I got them from Calumet. I originally planned to find a printer that could print small enough but I couldn’t find anything I was happy with. When I bought more viewers this year I bought them from the manufacturer, Radex Inc.